NATHAN NEWMAN

Lessons Learned

Like most of you, I'm depressed that fear, lies and hate were
rewarded with victory at the polls. That a majority of Bush
supporters believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that
Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks shows a fundamental
breakdown in democratic debate. This combination of the big lies told
by the president and media collaboration is pathetic, but it no doubt
required an ideological disposition by conservative voters to ignore
all contrary evidence, so it reflects the ideological divide in our
country.

What We Did Right: That said, I think the first thing progressives
should do is understand what we did right in this election. A few
hundred thousand more votes in Ohio and a lot of people would be
talking about the brilliance of the Kerry campaign in withstanding
the barrage of Bush lies and dirty tricks. And the record turnout of
Democrats is something we can collectively take great pride in. A
higher percentage of the eligible voting population voted for Kerry
than ever voted for Gore, Clinton or any candidate since Carter won
in 1976 -- and Kerry got about as high a percentage of potential
voters as Carter. Whatever we do in the future, we need to respect
the power of outreach and not go back to the past when too little
money was spent on the nuts and bolts of turnout.

And whatever criticism people might have of Kerry's campaign, it's
worth noting that he ran on a strong progressive platform --
pro-labor, pro-environment, anti-death penalty, committed to civil
rights. And while folks wax nostalgic for Bill Clinton, his campaigns
were often conducted at the expense of progressive values through
"Sister Souljah" moments and "triangulations" such as selling out
welfare moms in 1996. We should sit back and appreciate that a record
55 million Americans supported a campaign committed to progressive
values.

Bush and "moral values": The problem for the campaign, of course,
is that Bush pulled an even higher turnout. Fear is a great
motivator, but we need to understand why many lower-income voters --
folks who will be harmed by Bush's economic policies &endash;-voted
for Bush on "moral values." And we don't know because in many of the
religious communities where these votes are cast, we don't have
organizers talking to them on a day-to-day basis.

We progressives need to do what we did right in this election and
make engagement with strongly religious voters a priority. There are
groups that regularly organize for social justice in religious
communities, but other progressives have rarely made support and
funding of such groups a priority in the same way we've made outreach
to other communities a key goal.

Where We Agree with Evangelicals: For those who somehow think
Christian evangelicals are some kind of alien species with whom we
can't make common cause on many issues, it might be worth checking
out the main association of those churches, the National Association
of Evangelicals. While they say many things you will disagree with,
you might want to read a recent report they issued on civic
involvement by evangelicals called "For the Health of the Nation: An
Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." While abortion and gay
marriage are discussed, when you get to around page 8, there is a
serious discussion about economic justice, including these
excerpts:

"God identifies with the poor (Ps. 146:5-9), and says that those
who 'are kind to the poor lend to the Lord' (Prov. 19:17), while
those who oppress the poor 'show contempt for their Maker' (Prov.
14:31). Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the
imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God (Matt.
25:31-46). The vulnerable may include not only the poor, but women,
children, the aged, persons with disabilities, immigrants, refugees,
minorities, the persecuted, and prisoners. God measures societies by
how they treat the people at the bottom. ...

"We further believe that care for the vulnerable should extend
beyond our national borders. American foreign policy and trade
policies often have an impact on the poor. We should try to persuade
our leaders to change patterns of trade that harm the poor and to
make the reduction of global poverty a central concern of American
foreign policy. We must support policies that encourage honesty in
government, correct unfair socioeconomic structures, generously
support effective programs that empower the poor, and foster economic
development and prosperity. Christians should also encourage
continued government support of international aid agencies, including
those that are faith based."

These folks may be voting for Bush based on social issues, but
they have fundamental disagreements on what Bush's policies are doing
to poor people. Some may recognize this and be voting for him anyway,
but I suspect that many don't know the whole story, because we don't
talk to them enough.

So the challenge going forward is to build on what we've done in
mobilizing our core communities -- unions, urban centers, civil
rights groups, womens' networks, and so on -- and make a concerted
drive to split off the economic justice-oriented evangelicals from
the rightwing corporate political machine.

If you work with people day to day on common concerns, like
economic justice, they won't necessarily cease disagreeing with you
on other issues, but they will trust you that one disagreement does
not disguise ill intent or hidden agendas that they may fear. The
main point is not to change our values, but to make it clearer to
these voters that they differ far more from Bush on core issues of
justice than they do from progressives on the social issues Karl Rove
raised to a frenzy.

Nathan Newman is a labor lawyer and longtime community
activist. Email nathan@newman.org or see
www.nathannewman.org.